COLUMBIA, Mo 8/8/13 (Beat Byte) -- A Cover Our Asses approach at the top of City Hall has so corrupted the police department "we may have to take a serious look at replacing Columbia's top cop," police chief Ken Burton.

Parry has astonished readers with an August editorial that includes a damning allegation against the establishment hierarchy he usually praises.

More interested in protecting their jobs than protecting citizens, city leaders deliberately hamstrung the police force after a controversial 2010 SWAT raid drew national outrage, Parry claims.

"Insiders say the marching orders were clear," he writes. "Take no action that might potentially embarrass the police chief or city manager."

These "marching orders" may be the "smoking gun" behind Boone County Sheriff Dwayne Carey's unprecedented public tug-of-war with Burton over the need for so-called "proactive, community policing."

Ironically, Burton has championed just such an approach. Two years ago, for instance, he organized a training program for "bias-free, respectful community policing" that emphasized more -- not less -- community engagement.

But today, Parry writes, disengagement -- and spiking crime -- have become the norm. A "culture of avoiding controversy at all costs" has evolved at the department that "may have led to an increase in more blatant crime."

Columbia cops serve 80% fewer warrants to search for weapons, drugs, and other crime paraphernalia than they did just a few years ago, he notes.

In 2010, officers served 70 warrants, ordered by judges for probable cause. In 2012, the number fell to 14 warrants.

Though these numbers are publicly available, Parry claims to get his information about the CYA marching orders from "law enforcement insiders."

Insider contacts tell Parry "our ability to address this spike in criminal activity has been impeded by a significant cultural shift" at the police department prompted by those CYA marching orders after the SWAT raid.

Parry is not alone in his condemnation of CPD's leadership culture. A consultant city manager Mike Matthes hired to study the police department last year issued a report that prompted Matthes to grade the police with a "D."

Hired in early 2009, Burton was a social, cordial, and publicly-available advocate for community engagement and forceful yet respectful policing.

But with each new controversy, he has receded a little more from public view. Meanwhile, the vision Burton articulated so well just a few years ago has gradually disappeared, behind the cloistered walls he had come from a little town in Texas to help us tear down.